Cascadian English

author: an Ecotopian Yeti

Does Cascadia have a unique linguistic legacy as well as a unique dialect? Historically I would say yes. When you look at the lingustic history of the region and at the use of the dominant language with its unique elements I would say yes there is a distinct Cascadian English.

Which is very 'Copacetic'

"Chinook, for a century the International Language of the Pacific Coast, from Northern California to Alaska, from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains." ~J.M.R. Le Jeune's "Chinook Rudiments"

When I lived in Eastern Europe as well as in southern Asia my accent was always a question that came up. In Eastern Europe this often came up when Europeans needed a tutor in English. They wanted British speakers for passing grammar tests, but wanted "Americans" for conversational English. American accents were en vogue. One friend of mine one evening at a restaruant asked me in a thick sounding British accent "ok what kind of accent do I have American or Brit?" I replied "You have a British accent" in which he responded "Bloody hell!" Another friend from Britain (who loved harassing Americans for their accents) was once in a conversation with me when i pointed out that in a BCC production on the history of English mentioned that the Pacific NorthWest accent was the closing "living" pronounciation to original Shakespearean English. Tim's comeback (with what to me sounded more like an Irish accent) to that was with a huge grin on his face was "that is because your people have not evolved". But meeting other Europeans back then who had English teachers from Boston and Texas could not figure out my accent. Which was ok with me since I often tried to pass myself off as a Scandinavian or German. Even years ago in Portland friends that were not originally from Cascadia would often say "you are European right? German or some Slav?" I would find it to be a compliment at frist because generally I can not stand most American accents (especially southern, Texan or the nasally urban east). Sorry if I insulted anyone about that.

But Cascadians raised in this region do have an unique accent. Actually we tend to have the accent that the corporate media use to cherish to the point that the big media syndicates would send reporters, anchor persons and pseudo-meteorologists to be groomed for future mass consumption to Portland and Seattle. This was done to get rid of their midwest Scandinavian influenced accents or especially the southern drawl that is often interpeted as a sign of "stupidity".

I do believe there is an intentional suppression of an uniqueness of Pacific NorthWest accent or dialect by outsiders who want to claim anything west has no unique culture or history. That American nationalism would "white-wash" all the Pacific NorthWest (or NorthEast Pacific or Cascadia) as white American settlers waiting for Manifest Destiny to take hold from "sea to sea" and hence editing out of the Cascadian narrative countless people, cultures and historical events.

"Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future, control the present; Those who control the present, control the past."~ 1984, George Orwell

I have posted articles about this in the past and how Chinook Jargon was heavily influential in creating an unique Cascadian English. I have strongly suggested that we should use Chinook Jargon as another linguistic reservoir (as we often do with French, Greek, Latin and other languages when we lack a word or a special essense of the situation).

So with all that said here is some new (and one not so new) articles with URLs:

Do You Speak Cascadian?

Take the test:

"Say 'caught' and 'cot' out loud. If you're a true Northwest speaker, the words will sound identical."

Do you say "pail" or "bucket"? If you're a true Northwest speaker, you say "bucket."

Contrary to belief, local linguists say Northwest has distinctive dialect

By TOM PAULSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Listen for the creaky voice, the strong "s" and the "low-back merger."

Most language experts believe the Pacific Northwest has no distinctive voice, no particular style or dialect. But some local linguists think that's wrong -- or at least a long-standing academic prejudice that deserves a good challenge.

Jennifer Ingle, a 27-year-old Ballard native and student of language at the University of Washington, is one of them.

"Language is part of our identity," said Ingle. Just as the Scandinavian heritage of Ballard distinguishes it from the rest of Seattle, she said, the evolution of language in the Northwest has progressed to the point where it can be distinguished from the rest of the country.

The question for the experts now appears to be whether our version of the English language has evolved enough to be considered a separate dialect.

"Linguists have generally assumed that the West is one dialect region," said Alicia Beckford Wassink, a UW professor of linguistics and mentor to Ingle.

"That may have been the case in the 1800s, when the West was being settled and there was a mixing of dialects among all the immigrants," said Wassink. But there's plenty of evidence now, she said, to suggest this region could have its own distinctive dialect.

Northwest speak.

Ingle decided a year ago to study her own neighborhood for evidence of local dialect. To some extent, she said, growing up in Ballard contributed to her interest in language.

"I used to hear people in my neighborhood speaking Norwegian," said Ingle, noting that despite her family's Scottish heritage, one of her favorite foodstuffs is lefse -- a Nordic flatbread made from potatoes.

But Ingle's study of language in Ballard was not aimed at identifying any of the neighborhood's Nordic influences. Participants were not asked to say, "Yah, sure, ya betcha." Rather, Ballard was selected as representative of the region because it is one of the oldest communities in the state, with a well-established population of native speakers.

"All the participants were born in Seattle and grew up in Ballard," said Ingle. She focused just on variation in vowel sounds because that is what most determines the different pronunciations in spoken American English.

Still, it should be noted that when Ingle presented her findings this week, it happened to be on the same day Ballard was celebrating Norwegian Constitution Day, May 17. Her study of Northwest speech in Ballard was presented in Vancouver, B.C., at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

Among the findings: Many locals, especially women, speak in what experts call "creaky voice"; we've done away with a particular vowel used by Easterners; we really like to emphasize the "s" in words; we're not Californian and we're not Canadian.

Other determinants of dialect include differences in vocabulary and grammar, added Wassink, which are also being looked at in other linguistic studies at the UW.

"The Northwest is especially interesting because we have had almost nothing but immigration," Wassink said. "And there hasn't been as much racial or ethnic segregation as in the East. For a linguist, it's a very interesting place."

So, why do so many women talk creaky here? What's that mean anyway?

"Bill Clinton is a good example of creaky," said Ingle. Clinton's folksy speech, in which his voice sounds both scratchy and relaxed, is the opposite of "breathy" voicing, she said.

In the Northwest, Ingle's study indicates creaky voicing is popular -- especially among women. Breathy voicing, which in extreme form sounds like Marilyn Monroe's birthday song for JFK, is not big in the Northwest.

Wassink said the local popularity of creaky voicing could be how we compensate for another feature of our speech style. We've stopped using one vowel. Linguists work with 15 vowel sounds to describe spoken American English and we only use 14 of them.

Say "caught" and "cot" out loud. If you're a true Northwest speaker, the words will sound identical. Linguists call this the "low-back merger" because we've merged these two vowel sounds. On much of the East Coast, these same words will sound different. "Creaking is a way of making those distinctions that are being lost," Wassink said. Just as Bostonians tend to compensate in their speech for removing the "r" from many words, she said, we might speak creaky to compensate for refusing to use both vowels.

Another piece of evidence has to do with how Californians do something known as "fronting the vowel," Ingle said. This is considered standard to Western dialect and occurs when a speaker pronounces "rude" as "ri-ood" or "move" as "mi-oove."

Native Northwest speakers do not do this, she said. If anything, they sound more Canadian. But she also tested this notion and looked for spoken practices here known as the "Canadian Shift" and "Canadian Raising."

In the Canadian Shift, speakers "retract" vowels -- making "bad" sound more like "bod." In Canadian Raising, speakers raise the first part of a diphthong (when one vowel merges into another) such as making the word "stout" into something more like "stah-oot."

Ingle found little evidence to support that Northwest speakers were adopting these Canadian pronunciation patterns.

She was interested to discover that Northwest speakers appear to put such strong emphasis on the "s" in words, but she drew no conclusions. Her focus for this study was on vowels, after all, not consonants.

Wassink, Ingle and Richard Wright, director of the UW Linguistics Phonetics Lab and also a co-author on the Ingle study, are working on a number of fronts to see if there is evidence of a true Pacific Northwest dialect. Wright was still in Vancouver yesterday, having just presented a report on the Alaskan native language Deg Xinag, used in the lower Yukon.

The UW linguists need to build their case with more than varying pronunciations. They are looking at differences in vocabulary -- we say "bucket" and they say "pail" -- as well as grammatical variations -- such as dropping the past tense marker, where they say "canned fish" and we sometimes say "can fish."

"It can be very technical," Wassink said.

Ingle agreed, noting that her study of speech in Ballard involved only 14 people yet took countless hours of recording and analysis. The paper summarizing her results looks a lot like a mathematics report, including charts mapping variations in vowel sounds and digital "sonograms" that allowed her to isolate specific frequencies contained in sounds.

"It's just been this assumption that's never been tested," Wassink said. "Everyone thinks the Pacific Northwest is too young a region to have our own dialect. It's discrimination."
P-I reporter Tom Paulson can be reached at 206-448-8318 or tompaulson@seattlepi.com

In the days when a traveller's well-being depended on the hospitality of strangers, a hearty "Klahowya!" opened doors all over the Pacific Northwest. For a century and a half, the Chinook Jargon bound together vastly different cultures in an area encompassing seven American states and two Canadian provinces. Virtually extinct today, vestiges of this hard-working pidgin persist in colourful expressions and place names.

Pacific Coast tribes invented Jargon before European contact, probably around 1730. Whites later called their trade lingo "Chinook" Jargon, because Chinook tribes were the first coastal peoples to trade with the newcomers on a contract basis. This label was often shortened to "Chinook," a source of much confusion. The native languages of Chinookan-speaking First Peoples are as complete, as complex and as evocative as any true language. By contrast, Jargon has only rudimentary grammar and a 500-word vocabulary. (Some authorities claim as many as 800 words.) Jargon must not therefore be compared to true Chinookan languages.

The entry of the great fur companies into the Northwest economy brought Eastern tribal tongues, English, Canadian French and even Hawaiian into Jargon. The mountain men promulgated Jargon far afield, to such distant points as Alberta, Alaska and California. As Jargon settled into new climes it inevitably picked up local vocabulary and pronunciation, to the point that speakers from distant edges of Jargon's empire must have had some difficulty understanding one another. Jargon's limited vocabulary presented another challenge. In practice, speakers used sign language, facial expression and vocal intonation to convey subtleties. This was precise enough for trade, but US courts have ruled that the terms of some treaties drawn up in the last century were not clear to all signatories, since they were negotiated in Jargon.

To circumvent this problem, speakers pressed poetic license. A touching example is "opitsah sikhs," or knife friend. A backwoodsman survives by his knife, therefore his "opitsah sikhs" is someone he can't live without. It might mean partner, best friend, or lover. Electricity has been expressed as "kwass saghalie piah kopa lope," or tame sky-fire [lightning] in a rope. Jargon is therefore concept-based, relying on cultural references more than true languages generally do.

In its waning years, Jargon became heavily anglicised. Uniquely Native grammar and pronunciation faded. Few trained linguists devoted attention to the subject, so much Jargon pronunciation and syntax have been lost to history. Melville Jacobs, a University of Washington anthropologist, is an important exception. Jacobs traveled the Northwest in the 1930s, transcribing into Americanist phonetics stories elderly Natives related in Jargon. Jacobs' monograph provides rare, authentic examples of living pronunciation, grammar and syntax, with regional differences intact.

Echoes of Jargon are still caught from time to time in Northwest speech. Longtime residents call the bay "saltchuck", or sea water. "Skookum" (strong) appears in the complaint, "My old pickup isn't skookum enough to take that hill." Kaleetan (arrow), Illahee (homeland) and tiny Hiyu (great big) are three of several Washington ferries with Jargon names. Alaskans call newcomers "cheechakos," from the Jargon for new and come. A few Jargon words have even gone continental. Hooch (bad liquor) is short for "hootchanoo," and "tolo," the girls-ask-boys high school dance, means "to take control."

Jargon is an important tool to understanding Northwest history. For example, Washington's one-word state motto, is often translated "by and by." In reality, "alki" is an untranslatable concept-term referring to the future. The map preserves other insights into the past, such as:

The Internet, friend of embattled languages, hasn't passed over modest old Jargon, either. When my grandfather died many years ago, I feared I might be the only Jargon speaker left on the planet. Now, three home pages are dedicated to preserving and promoting Jargon, each linked to dictionaries, fellow Jargon scholars and other resources. Web presence has even led to a Jargon convention in Mission, BC, in September. Who knows? Maybe the old girl's up for a new lease on life.

Jargon opens a window on cultures since badly disrupted. How much richer we might be if we understood the subtle wisdom in the universal Jargon salutation that, like aloha, also means goodbye. Klahowya.

This article available from Suite 101 World Languages: www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/world_languages

Grunge speak was a hoax created by Megan Jasper, a sales representative for Sub Pop Records. Under pressure from a reporter for The New York Times who wanted to know if grunge fans had their own slang, Jasper, 25 at the time, told the reporter a set of made-up on-the-spot slang terms that she claimed were associated with the Seattle grunge scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The information given by Jasper would appear in the sidebar of a November 15, 1992 feature article of the Times. The sidebar, titled "Lexicon of Grunge: Breaking the Code", had also mistakenly claimed that Jasper was working for Caroline Records.

In truth, there was no particular slang language used in the Seattle grunge scene, or in any other grunge scene at the time. While some members of the grunge scene may have used other forms of slang (such as those that have become commonly used in the English language), many felt no need to create their own to go along with grunge. Many had even resented the assumption by the Times that they even had a slang language, as well as their claim that it was "coming soon to a high school or mall near you".

The article was proven to be a hoax by Thomas Frank of The Baffler, a journal of cultural criticism. In it, he revealed that Jasper had purposely misled the Times as well as the British magazine Sky as a prank. Jasper, known to be sarcastic, had been sick of the excessive amount of questions that reporters were asking people involved in the Seattle grunge scene, and thus pulled the prank to get back at them for their superfluous questioning.

The Times demanded that Frank fax over an apology for claiming the Times had printed false information, believing that it was Frank that was the hoaxer. Frank instead sent a letter standing by the story and explaining that "when The Newspaper of Record goes searching for the Next Big Thing and the Next Big Thing piddles on its leg, we think that's funny." Frank (as well as many grunge fans) had considered the article to be part of an attempt by mainstream culture to co-opt the grunge scene and felt that the Times had gotten what they deserved.

Shortly after the release of The Baffler's story, some people in Seattle began selling and wearing t-shirts with the words "lamestain" and "harsh realm" printed in the same font as the title of the Times. The words never did catch on as actual slang, but served the purpose of lampooning the Times for a short while. One of the terms, "harsh realm", was used as the title of a short-lived science-fiction television series in 1999. The events of Jasper's prank would also be documented in the 1996 film Hype!, a documentary about the grunge scene of the early 1990s.

Grunge speak words

During the interview, Jasper made up the following terms and their definitions:

Language is crucial to building a new culture and a new community (I don't like to use the word "nation" in the old sense, so when I use community here, it means a politically autonomous collective effort). The more we discover that Cascadia is culturally, linguistically, philosophically and politically separate from the USA, the more likely our eventual freedom becomes.

the "a" as "ar" is also a common aspect in the reagion in general, but mostly with those born before 1965.

If you ever listen to Paul Linnman on KATU (I have no clue if he still is on that channel since I do not watch corporate news any more) he will say "Warshington". If you listen to Paul Linnman in his journalist voice from the earlier 1970s you can pick up the slight "warsh" when he talks of the whale that warshed ashore. Which is ironic because in Chinook Jargon there is no "r" so words like for "grease" is "glees". Yet when you talk to Native People in Cascadia who speak English as their native tongue will say "ar" in some words where "a" is.

I've never heard someone say it like warshington without joking. Unless there mom or dad came from the south. My mom's side of the fam is from the cascadian area in general but recent generations are from washington and none of them pronounce it like that no matter how far out in the middle of no where they live.

The "ar" for "a" pattern happens in a number of places, including throughout the "rust belt" of cities such as Cincinati, Youngstown OH, and Pittsburgh. I'll bet it happens in other locations too, and perhaps has more to do with class (or perhaps some proxy for class, such as education level) than with location. Interestingly, the same people who said "I got to do the warsh" in Pittsburgh also used the oddest plural-you form I've ever heard - yinz. And they also called their city "Picksbird".

Ha ha! That's soo funny! It's totally true that cascadian's have a really unique accent. For sure. I love hearing about what people think makes it distinct thought. It gives me a total since of pride for our bioregion. I feel so unique when some one asks me "Where ARE you from?". I get it quite a lot actually usually from people that arn't from here. And they are always just like, "I love your accent, I can't figure out where it's from.." And guess, Eastcoast/NY, NY, or Some kind of 'southern'. Is the most common guess.

I am totally from this bioregion. In fact I went to preschool right down on SW 8th & Washington on the park blocks. And I've never really moved away. So I feel that whichever speaking style it is I use is unique and pretty uninfluenced dialect.

It's funny though because I have REALLY pronounced "s'", and although I've never said Warshington with an R (unless I was joking to some out of towner... yup... that over there's warshington.. hehe). But do have a VERY "creaky" voice. Which I never really noticed before.

I was thinking that maybe the "ar" in "warsh" was from the older German, Scandinavian and Balkans contribution back from the logging communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But now I am thinking that alot of these rural areas (ofcourse not addmitting it after the Communist witch hunt) may have "rust belt" union and IWW connections and picked it up from that. Not so much lack of education as opposed to a class connected with social consciousness. The unionists-anarchists-wobblies-communists-socialists history is really deleted from Cascadian history by American Nationalists (be it conscious or unconscious). Centralia (yes that town that is precieved as a hicktown) was once the heart of the Wobblie movement of the Pacific NorthWest. The Finns of Astoria were once divived so much over the issue of the workers that there was once two taverns called the Finnish Room (the Red Finns and the White Finns). I believe if we really wish to understand Cascadian linguistic history we need to uncover lots of history that has been "white-washed" by the illusion of the American national narrative.

Ofcourse then there is the shifting "t" to "d' which is common in many dialects throughout the world such as in most Turkish dialects. I will say "water" if that is the focus of the sentence or sometimes at the end of the sentence, but if it is in the middle or said really fast then it is "wader".

Last time I was in Cascadian 'British Columbia,' everyone had the classic Canuck accent. Saying 'aboot' instead of 'about,' throwing 'eh' at the end of sentences, etc. You just don't here this on the US side of Cascadia, eh.

Down in southern Oregon, folks sound way more California, bra. Little bit more like the surfer or snowboardee stylee. All I need when I'm down there is some tasty waves and phat nugs, bra.

The 'test' in the original post is ridiculous. Elements of any sort of 'Cascadian' dialect or more appropriately found as people say 'Orygun,' instead of ORE-UH-GONE, like everyone else outside the Pacific Northwest says. Or worse yet, the way native Northwesterners say 'spendy' to indicate that something is 'expensive.' What the?!

I have only noticed southern Californians or "transplants" say "spendy".

Then there is the shortening of names and words by southern Californians who think its cool and being "native". Like "Freddy's" for Fred Myers (gag). As a joke I started calling Safeway "Safee", but got sick of that and now just say Safeway with a bad fake French accent. The latest I have heard several times in one week was "Lake O" or "L.O." instead of Lake Oswego like it was Los Angeles (L.A.). When I first heard that I almost puked all of over the person. Then I heard it again at which point I decided not to hold back the puke. Just my assumption that most Cascadians do not shorten the name of places in cutesie forms or even use initials in most cases (but that is just my guess).

As for Oregon ... well you know its not just "Ore-uh-gun", but also "Orygin" with the "gin" being pronnounce like the Cascadian pronounciation of "guin" in "Guinness" (the Irish drink of champinions .. or .. drunkards). But as you point out it is NEVER "Or-ee-GONE" (them fightin word!). Infact its kind of fun to watch a herd of Oregonians (a pod if the group is less than five) jump out of their seats or have a full body jerk when they hear "Or-ee-GONE". Which is the biggest reason why we need to form Cascadia so that we never hear the mispronounciation of Oregon ever again.

I've always thought that people from more rural parts of Cascadia have a very, very, light "Western Twang" to their accent. Just very slightly kind of Texas like in nature. When you get more into the urban areas I often here that slight California Valley boy or girl thing. Overall, I think we have a "TV" accent. Yes, we sound like TV actors and the like! When I was outside of Dallas, Texas, I could here the Texas draw. When I went into the downtown area, a lot of that went away. Being more in urban areas, I have heard more "TV" accents.

Wow, plenty o insight. I would probably lean toward the (specific type of working) class thing, I grew up in central Oregon in a small logging town where it was common. I have also noticed it fairly common in other "logging" areas like Sandy, Springfield, Roseburg, and other similar high up the food chain locals. The old timer idea may also be on target, it is definately less common now than in the 60's/ 70's. Maybe the logging crowd just had their own slang, like say.... surfers or skateboarders.

I am a fourth generation Cascadian, my grandmother pronounces wash and Washington as warsh and Warshington. She grew up mostly in Washington, her kids on the Oregon coast. I had only receintly heard other people pronounce it that way.

It still makes me giggle.

"Elements of any sort of 'Cascadian' dialect or more appropriately found as people say 'Orygun,' instead of ORE-UH-GONE, like everyone else outside the Pacific Northwest says."

I don't know anyone that pronounces it Orygun. Its not a 'y', its more of an 'i' as in 'pit'. The phonetic characters won't show on a copy and paste for me, but the first pronunciation on the dictionary.com website is the standard Cascadian pronunciation of Oregon. see: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Oregon

Note, their is only two syllables, although the form of 'i' pronounced is what seems to be a "half-syllable" (I don't know the technical term for whatever it is. I just know its a very slight pronounciation when I do it, barely noticable and difficult for newcomers to pick up. Newcomers either overemphasize or drop that "i".)

The second shown on dictionary.com is one of the most common foreigner or tourist pronunciation of Oregon. Anyone living here, should pick up the standard Cascadian pronunciation of Oregon within a week after being given pronunciation lessons by natives.

I spent 3 years living in Maryland and no one outside of Delmarva (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) can pronounce Maryland correctly either.

I agree with Monochromo that citified Cascadians nove toward a "hollywood tv accent", which is a recycled western accent. The drift is toward uniformity. Whereas, the blue collar poor, esp. rural poor have a distinct Cascadian "twang". It is comparable to any of the various "southern" twangs, but very different than the texas "twang". Their is also a hint of drawl, again unlike the Texas drawl. Having grown up in a dieing logging town, I think this is a remnant of logger culture.

As for 'caught' and 'cot', I thought that goes to say for all Westerners.

Having been exposed to "tv culture" I assumed it to be the norm, and all those Midwesters, Easterners and Southerners as pronouncing in British-style. Then again, I don't remember Eastern Shore folk (Marylanders specifically) pronouncing it differently than us Westerners, I'll have to ask around.

It is not that Hollywood has generated the urban or suburban Cascadian accent... its the other way around. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a conscious move by the corporate media to use the accent in the Pacific NorthWest because it was neither the southern hick sound nor the snooty urban New Yorker. The Pacific NorthWest represented the idealized working man struggling to control his environment like the building of dams and control of Nature. But after a century of European settlers conquering or trying to tame Mother Nature we started to realize in the 1960s and 1970s that you can not conquer Nature. Early in the 20th century Woody Guthrie realized the errors of the archetypical Working Man after the Bonneville Dam built. He later regretted his support of the idea of "progress" that would murder a Wild River.

Just a side note that the "twang" element that is often part of the more rural Cascadian accent (south of the 49th Parallel) just may come from the moving in of CCC workers during the depression era and the (dreaded) Okies from the Dust Bowl. Many Oregonians during the Depression were more concerned with the mass immigration of Okies in to the Willamette Valley than any other change of demographics at the time. This is an interesting reoccuring aspect of the region... the fear of other "whites" moving in be it Okies (who settled in California's agricultural centers in the 1930s) or later the suburban southern Californians in the 1970s through the 1990s.

Just another note: Woody Guthrie as an anti-fascist folk singer is really deleted in the American Nationalistic narrative. I suggest all to look up his original lyrics to "This Land is Your Land". It is not the pro-capitalistic nationalistic song that most Americans think it is. But what do you except from a population that thinks the Beatles's "Revolution" was to sell Nike shoes or Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" is to sell patriotic blue jeans. Does anybody else see that we have been brain-fucked? Even our own voices of protest have been turned against us and marketed for our consumption of the banality of evil.

You know, I have heard a little bit about this Jasper business and I am glad you brought it up. Again and again you see these media figure heads with this binary logic try to co-opt language. Language is something that culture adopts, but isn't language as commodifiable as a form of dress or anything else? All of these "rebel cultures" we have developed in the past have been mc-raped. In Jaspers tradition, the ends to a mean is more subversive or sarcastic.

well Esposito when I was adding that article I was tempted to put in NorthWest Noir which is both a film style and often I think a Cascadian approach or view to life. It sees the dark aspects of life with an ironic twist to things. Its our collective "morbid" mythology of life being born from death. The continous rains giving way to spring only to be hit by a suprise hail storm. The vulcanic landscape that could burst at any moment to destroy and create new life. Television shows of the late 80s like Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure were filmed here but also seemed to capture that "noir" sarcasm. Pictures of Kurt Cobain with a gun in his mouth after the first suicide attempt reflects that. Infact practically all of Nirvana and Grunge music reflected that sarcasm. Having D.B. Copper Days in Ariel Washington (oops spelt as Warshington now) where people dress up as D.B. Copper show up. I remember seeing a humorous piece in the media (when it was good in the 1970s) where it was suggested that Tom McCall was D.B. Copper. Bigfoot reflects it too by reaching into our collective mystery. The exploding whale reflects that dark ironic humour. It is in our music, our arts, our sense of community and it is who we are.

Just a special note here to those reading who are not Cascadians: In no way are we serious about not being Americans. We love you all Americana and trully find consumer society a fun and joyfull experience.

still i didn't remember it was so funny, we hadn't at that time the benefit of the theory: the farthest the closest the fact is that shakespeare didn't have a chance to dry in california, as if there were original identities, as if they could travel around unchanged, notwithstanding only a nothwesterner could make me quite laugh in such a fearful era

The only place I have heard "warshington" is the very upper midwest, on over to North Dakota, Wyoming, and as far west as east of the Cascades. I have never heard it here (Western WA) except from folks from these areas, especially those over 60. I suspect it may be rooted in the language of migrant agricultural workers in the teens who later became employed in the lumber industry in the teens and twenties, hence the rural character. Yeti's remarks jibe with this, as the upper Midwest was populated by Scandanavians immigrants, and those accents are still thick in those regions.

As for "grunge", both accounts in the original article are incorrect. Grunge was coined publically by a newsprint magazine in Seattle called Backlash, around 1989-90. Seattle had several such magazines at that time (Rocket, Wire, Backlash, and a handful of short lived publications) and all of them were tightly networked with people who were both in bands and in college radio. As soon as it became used by media heads it bacame a taboo word to use, and usage marked one as a suburban johnny come lately.

One thin I have noticed is that Yeti and fn brill are never in the same room together. How odd.

I agree with the comment about rural Cascadia holding on to a flat, western twang. This amounts to a flattening of most vowels, and leads, I've come to believe, to the common misspelling of "than" as "then". In the Cascadian accent, the short vowels sound very similar (think, in contrast, of the new yorker's nasal "ah" pronunciation of short a, or the the even more pronounced Boston "paaahk the caaah" for ar.) In Cascadia, perk and park are almost indistinguishable. In some rural areas, southern or hick pronunciations, such as "crick" for "creek" are also common.

Aside from accent and pronunciation, though, I'm curious about language inventions and usages that are truly regional. What are current Cascadian words that really aren't used elsewhere? Subcultures create their own languages (don't dis homies for they rap). I wonder if Cascadia as a region and culture is creating a distinct language, or if it's just a question of accent.

I did not even know who fn brill was until just now when I did a google search. So I am sorry I wish I could contribute to that branch of court intrigue... well not at least when it comes to that hidden identity.

I woke up this morning telling someone that this post made it to the front of Portland Indy last night. The other person dropped the newspaper and looked at me. "When did you post this?" I replied "..the morning before about 4ish." The other person responded with "Well it made it on local TV ... I missed the report, but they were talking of a regional dialect." Smirk

As a transplanted Pittsburgher, I can confirm that we use "warsh" and "yinz" as a second person plural. Pittsburghers also add "an 'at" (and that) to the ends of sentences much like other people use "yadda yadda yadda" or "and whatnot".

I haven't noticed "warsh" that much here though. I can instantly tell a Pittsburgher from the accent.

"Spendy" is Californian? I didn't know that.

This may be a divergence from the usual conversation on this board, but it's a good thing, both in getting people interested in the Native American/First Nations influence on language and culture, as well as building bridges to people originally from your original region.

before this series of posts I had never heard of "yinz" before and I was born and raised west of the Cascade range and my family lines have had a presence in the region for over a hundred years.

Just as a side note and potential series of spin off posts: In Chinook jargon there is the word "yaka" meaning he/she/it or gender neutral third person pronoun. Like the "o" in both Hungarian (Magyar) and Turkish (Türkçe) as well as the Finnish (Suomi) "hän". When "Klingon" was created for the Star Trek series the pronoun "o" was usuruped into that fantasy language. Old English at one time also had a gender neutral third person pronoun that was "ou". As i have said repeatedly in other posts in various places in the cyber universe I think we, Cascadians, should use Chinook Jargon as a linguistic reservior just as we do with Greek, Latin, German, French and other languages. "Yaka" (even the Old English "ou") could be a means to removing the sexism or gender chauvinsim that still clandestinely haunts our shared cultures and daily life. Ofcourse I am kinda of a weirdo because I think we should restore "thou" and "thee" when refering to Mother Nature, the forest and revered mythological figures. On the other hand politicans should never be adressed with a sense of upper hierarchal role when they are in their governmental duty to serve the electorate (the voting masses). Because of the ineguity of power in a capitalistic society politicans too often think they are above the people.

this is the worst article indy has ever made a feature. period. not only is it biased and stereotypical, it perpetuates gross elitism and regional snobbery. whatever, i guess if it takes your mind off of real issues for 5 minutes...even political portlanders need some fluff pieces, huh?

I agree that dialect is often the source of stereotype and bias, but it is also something that is imbued with local flavor and color, and as such it can be positively embraced. This discussion is not necessarily about laughing at hicks for the way they "mispronunciate" (though I will verify the "yinz" use in my hometown and add that the people who use that form are (derogatorily) referred to as "yinzers"). It is about identifying some of the common communication patterns that can be identified as unique and different from the patterns used elsewhere. In so doing, I think that Ecotopian Yeti is seeking to take back possession of language forms that might otherwise be looked down on. Dialect is a culture and class identifier and only becomes a source of stereotype or bias when there is a shared agreement that one particular dialect is "above" the others. This is a common assumption, but it does not seem to be shared in this thread. So embrace your cascadianisms, Ecotopian Yeti, as I have embraced my yinzer heritage (and a shoutout to all the other yinzers out there - I'll see all a yinz in a dahntahn bar once the Stillers start up the new season, with or without the Bus n'at).

I grew up in Portland, lived there all my life. Only a year ago did I move to the Chicago area.
Not gonna lie, their accents drive me mad!

In the Midwest, most people outright REFUSE to pronounce "Oregon" correctly. 90% of people absolutely insist that it is "ORE-EE-GONE." And they will fight it to the death. As a native Oregonian, it is my duty to help our midled friends learn how to pronounce our lovely state's name. The best educating tool I can think to use to help them understand is by comparing it to people pronouncing the "S" in Illinois. Ponouncing the "S" makes you sound like the president; likewise, the same it to mispronouncing Oregon. Any suggestions on friendly ways of helping people get this tough task down?
As a pacifict, my only violent thoughts come when people mispronounce Oregon. ;)

I have only heard a few people say Warshington in my time. I hear it so seldom, I can recall the two people I've heard say the "ar." My first grade teacher, and 11th grade art teacher.

I am trying to figure out how "Caught" and "cot" could be pronounced differently---anyone figure that out?

I have heard our way of speaking described as "lazy." Anyone agree with that?

I also need a little help identifying this "creaky" thing. I don't really get it.

First off "creaky" I do not know what it means. Does it mean to sound like a creek flowing over rocks? "Cot" and Caught" I never thought that they were pronounced differently. "Crick" and "creek" yup that is a generational difference and maybe rural too. What about "bowl" and "bull" they sound the same to me. "Pop" from the Left Coast and "soda" from the South and Atlantic.

Okay my idea is that the Cascadian movement be rename back to Oregon for the Oregon Territory. Maybe even spell it Orygun or Orygen. Think about it. Portlander and the Yeti wrote "As a pacifict, my only violent thoughts come when people mispronounce Oregon. ;) " & "But as you point out it is NEVER "Or-ee-GONE" (them fightin word!). Infact its kind of fun to watch a herd of Oregonians (a pod if the group is less than five) jump out of their seats or have a full body jerk when they hear "Or-ee-GONE"." Imagine the support for a secessionist movement everytime Bush said "OR-EE-GONE" or something hick sounding Southerner saying "OR-EE-GONE can not susseed".

I think this article makes for interesting reading, but it is really just amusing fluff in the final analysis. I mean, if these linguists have to go to such extremes to even find a handful of words that norwesters pronounce uniquely, then there really is not all that much difference to speak of from the rest of the country and here. In addition, given that there is so much mobility in America with people moving to-and-fro constantly, moving from Texas to Oregon to Florida to Michigan, etc, etc. there is really little chance of any uniquely northwest accent ever really materializing--especially as more and more people move here from afar, and further "nationalize" the collective accent. There is simply too many homegenizing factors such as national TV shows everybody watches, people coming and going continually, syndicated radio shows, etc. to allow any accents to really develop or take root (here or anywhere else in the USA for that matter). All regions are sounding more and more alike with less differentation actually. Even the "Old South" is sounding less and less 'southern' these days. All these things considered, it is doubtful there will ever be a unique "Cascadia" accent.

More to the point: what I really think is going on here is more northwest PROVINCIALITY. Folks born and raised in this beautiful region have a tendency to want to set themselves apart from the rest of the country. Just look at the postings following this article. Or another example of provinciality: "Washington Native" bumper stickers, which were quite popular in the 90's. At least in Seattle where I used to live, native Seattleites had a BIG fixation on being "born and raised" northwesterners, to the point that they often resented transplants and excluded them from social activities and even jobs sometimes. Anyways, I kind of think that this "Cascadian English" is a projection of this northwest provinciality, a manifestation of wanting to be unique, which is OK, especially when our government seems to be contradicting many of the values and ideals that progressives in the Northwest hold dear. In any event this is a great region and I love it!

try "cawt" for caught. It's a little different than "cot", quite noticeable to my ear.

In response to the comments about fluff, I must disagree. Language is at the root of who we are as humans. Language matters, and it's a good way to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors to the east. Nothing fluffy about developing a new culture and nation. It's slow hard work, but it's vital. I've seen few articles here that seem to me more important than this one.

recently i have noticed that some people use 'norwest' as opposed to northwest. i and all the born-and-raised northwesterners i know never drop the 'th' in northwest. the 'th' is a sudden stop in the middle of the word 'northwest' with accents the fact it is north! when i see someone type 'norwest' i think 'new englander' or some easterner.

Over the last few decades I have been working on a easy phonetic script we could use for "Cascadian" English and in turn Chinook Wawa. The only problem is that some of the characters do not appear easily available on English keyboards and that in living with the current technology (especially with the internet) there is a disadvantage to using characters outside the English version of Latin script. Case in point is all the accent marks in other Latin based scripts in other languages not to mention several characters that are totally absent. Now if we could get Bill Gates (I know "boo hiss") to identify himself as Cascadian and to support my "Cascadian" version of the Latin script then we would win out.. even globally.

There are several reasons one could use a new script system specifically a phonetic system.

A phonetic system would update modern English. This has been a reform that most Latin scripted based writing systems went through a hundred years ago. George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Franklin both created and pushed for phonetic reform to increase literacy rates in the population.

Making a phonetic script for "Cascadian" English shared with Chinook Wawa would give a greater perception to those writing in Cascadian English the perception that Chinook Wawa is a linguistic reservoir of equal status as other traditional linguistic reservoirs like Latin, Classical Greek as well as modern languages like French, German, Hindi, Arabic and so forth. Often we dip into other languages to capture concepts or "loanwords" that English does not have in it for example "déjà vu" from French or "pajama" from Hindi. A shared deconstruction of the Anglo-American Latin script would create a new identity that is uniquely Cascadian. Switching script systems can also have a huge impact on creating a distinct identity in Cascadia from the rest of the North American continent. For one it could unite the Cascadian people on both sides of the US-Canadian border under a new socio-political push for new standards in education. It would separate Cascadia symbolically from Fascist Amerika. An example of another people who shifted script systems was the Turks. Under Ataturk the new nation of Turkey adopted the Latin script in replacement of the Arabic script. This created major perceptional changes in the Turkic peoples and other people of Anatolia. Having the Young Turks officially embrace the Turkified Latin script was a proclamation that the Ottoman Empire was dead; that the Turks were not Eastern, but Western; there was a generation gap between the old bureucrats and the modern Young Turks; women who were granted eqaulity now had an advantage in social moblity because they were being educated in Western style schools and so on and so on.

The current DOWNSIDE of a Phonetic Script in the age of limited scripts in cyberspace.

HERE IS THE PROBLEM! This is all pointless to even talk about because the way the internet is today all non-English Latin based alphabets have a huge disadvantage. Hungarian and Turkish e-mailers (just to name two) have to write in a limited version of their own language. For example instead of typing the "o" with a long umlaut (I use to call them "bunny ears") are replaced by a dipthong when typing for a English based Latin script. So the idea for now is out the door if we wish to add characters to the limited Englishized Latin script.

recently i have noticed that some people use 'norwest' as opposed to northwest. i and all the born-and-raised northwesterners i know never drop the 'th' in northwest. the 'th' is a sudden stop in the middle of the word 'northwest' WHICH accents the fact it is north! when i see someone type 'norwest' i think 'new englander' or some easterner.

If there was a surge in Cascadianism. We could use something like a network of free schools to deconstruct Amerikan history and cultural imperialism followed by educating the Cascadian masses of bioregional history and diversity as well as a simplistic phonetic script. The script system I designed is pretty easy to read for those who grew up in the school system here. Basically an "a" that is called a "long a" such as in eight, ate or they is simply an "a" with a line over it indicating its a "long a". "Sh" as in "ship" would be replace with a singal letter an "s" with a accent mark. Infact the "s" and "sh" was a difficult thing to tackle for phonetic reform early on in Hungarian they made "s" the "sh" sound and "sz" the "s" sound in English. In modern English we still find the script divergence is messure, tressure and pleasure which have become "jah" now and could be converted to a "z" like "3" or cursive "z". Anyway my original phonetic script I designed 10 years ago is now buried deep with other stuff in a garage, but can be recreated quickly if I saw the demand for it. The problem is I realistically do not see the demand... yet.

Douglas Fir said, "'Pop' from the Left Coast and "soda" from the South and Atlantic."

As an Oregon native, I say pop. However, Californians say soda. In fact, most Californians get irrate over our use of the word pop as if we are trying to start a fight. I think some midwesterners say or used to say 'soda pop', although I can only remember the expression used in the book and film 'The Outsiders'.

Douglas Fir said, "Okay my idea is that the Cascadian movement be rename back to Oregon for the Oregon Territory. Maybe even spell it Orygun or Orygen."

While, I would agree that 'Oregon' is more inclusive of Coastal of eastern and western Oregon pacificans, I doubt that Washingtonians would like that, nor would Jeffersonians, esp. those from Northern California, not to mention Californians from San Francisco to Jefferson. Not to mention those in B.C. and Alaska.

I disagree with changing the spelling.

Ecotopian Yeti, I disagree with converting our script into phonetic script, but I don't have time to go into the details right now.

Well actually if you read the whole thing I say why we should not convert (yet) and its simple there would be a techno-communication gap between the dominate version of the Latin scripted and a remodified version. Those using the phonetic script would be at a disadvantage since even those that use Cyrillic have to convert to basic Latin script today to chat and e-mail with most of the world today. So at the present situation I would also argue against it.

on the other hand if some great computer geek with magical powers could make a universal keyboard together with an universal software (free ofcourse) that with a push of a button will convert to any script then... we have a different situtation, but for now American cyber English is the dominant language of trade today.

But again I am just a Yeti your technolgy and strange flying metal birds scare me and yet fasinate me as well.

I know I have missed some sounds in this reconstruction especially a vowel or two.. Some letters might not even show up in this attempt. And yes some linguistic majors and lingists will shit green apples while saying "you have no clue about this stuff". My response would be "bite me". The "accent mark" could stand for the "long" mark over the vowel. Every character would only hold the value of one sound. No silent letters. The name of ever letter is the sound it makes.

A, a as in apple
Á, á as in ape
Ä, ä as in law
B, b
C, c is actually changed to a "ch" as in chop (no more double use as "s' or "k")
D, d
Ð, ð called eth in Norse and represents the "th" sound in them
E, e as in hemp
É, é as in eat

_, _ here would be a letter that looks like an upside down backwards "e" and represents a soften vowel sound like the last "a" in Cascadia

&#325;, &#326; which replaces the "ng" in pong, tang and wrong (these might not show up so they are like "n" that mated with a "j" hence a "n" with a "j" tail

O, o as in top
Ó, ó as in open
Ö, ö as in moose
P, p
R, r ("r" by the way like in Serbo-Croatian would hold a value as a vowel hence able to stand alone without the traditional e,i or u in front of it)

&#340;, &#341; a trilled "r" which we do not have, but I love trilling my "r" so I added it anyway
(may not show up.. so a "r" with a tilda over it)

S, s

&#7780;, &#7781; as in ship (may not show up so a "s" wit an accent mark over it which is found in Hindu transliteration often for Shiva, but as Siva)

_, _ well here would be the "ezh" an letter that has become our cursive "z" or the number "3" and would be the "s" in treasure

T, t
Þ, þ called thorn in Norse and represents the "th" sound in thick
U, u as in cut
Ú, ú as in cute
V, v
W, w
Y, y is only "y" as in yellow
Z, z

As far as I can tell the "d" and "t" in Cascadian English many times becomes "soft" sometimes to the point of silence. When i was saying "next" in a sentence to myself I soften the "t" to the point that I could barely notice it myself. When I designed the original version (10 years ago) I had added a shifting or softened "t" to "d" (and visa versa) as in "water", but I can not remember which character I used.

Ever realize a mistake while sitting in a waiting lounge for an appointment... well that was one. Hey what do you except doing a quick reconstruction at 3:00 in the morning of something you designed 10 years ago. Plus I am just a Yeti my vocal organs do not match that of humans. On the other hand, crypto-hominids like Sasquatch, Yeti, Yowie and Florida Skunk Ape as well as our height impaired cousin "Hobbits" of Indonesia far exceed in moss arts and crafts over puny homo sapiens sapiens.

Not to step on anybody's toes but I don't think that that study was that great. 14 people!? I was raised in Oregon, I used to say "pop", I started saying "soda pop" when I decided I liked it better after hanging out with a friend from California. My boyfriend from Northern Wisconsin says the difference between a "crick" & a "creek", is that cows shit in "cricks". After living in Madison, WI for almost 7 months, I can say that yeS, midwesterners will say Or-eh-gON. I say Or-eh-giN. There IS an Oregon, WI & a some of my friends pronounce the state & place in Oregon differently from eachother. I wouldn't say that 90% refuse to pronounce it properly -Chicago kids are pretty on top of it, so it seems to me anyway. I would have to agree with the "TV talk" comment. My boyfriend & his friends joke around by using slang & dragging out syllables, which he states he doesn't "know how these words & styles ever came into our lives in the Midwest". I'd have to chalk that up to Cali (yes, I shortened it, get over it)talk & the surfer/skater/stoner genre. This is general though. As for "warsh" I only remember a few incidents with a woman from Missouri, & that's it. My mum was born & raised in California for the early part of her life (until junior high, maybe?) & then lived in Indiana & around 20 or so moved to Oregon, she pronounces "house" like "haows", that one I'm not sure how to spell. Kind of like "hose", but kinda aus-rauten -ey, very soft-like. Someone told her it sounds Canadian, I says it either way. There's all this & sometimes much more behind how people speak. "Spendy" ? I've used it before.

So far as the comment that we all talk like California surfers in Southern Oregon ie. Lower Cascadia ...

California-speak, is in fact, extremely common in Southern Oregon, but it's not the original type of language used in the area. In the Rogue Valley, in particular, we are very much inundated by Californians. One recent poll suggested that about 85% of the people currently living in the Rogue Valley are either Californians or the children of Californians. That seems pretty accurate because in my group of friends, only two are actually from the Rogue Valley, while the others are either originally from California or elsewhere south. So that places "natives" (a term I'll use to indicate people with deeper local roots opposed to outsiders. ie. Not Native Americans) in the genuine minority. People like myself, who actually have very deep ancestral roots in the Rogue Valley, are in reality, very much a dying breed and the vast majority of us actually no longer even live there. As the area becomes more and more what I personally refer to as the "pre-coffin" (ie. over 70% of the local population are senior citizens who for whatever reason decided that the Rogue Valley would be a great place to spend their last years), with rising housing costs (both to rent or own) and rising unemployment in the area, it is becoming damn difficult for "natives" of the area to actually live here. Pretty much, all of the money is held by outsiders or "California immigrants" and the only way you can survive in the area is to become a self-starter (ie. work for yourself or become more self-sustainable) As a consequence, you will find a lot of us in cities like Eugene, Salem, Portland or Seattle.

As a consequence, with so many Californians and so few genuine locals, most people do seem very California, but genuine "natives" of Southern Oregon speak the same way as people do in Portland or Seattle. We say "pop" opposed to "soda". We say "bucket" opposed to "pail". On the other hand, we do we use the term "spendy". My grandmother says "spendy" and she grew up here long before we were invaded by Californians and California-speak. In the early 90's, I took my trade schooling in the Skagit Valley and lived in a dorm situation with people from all over Cascadia and most of us spoke the same way.

One thing I do believe that differs between Southern Oregon and the rest of Cascadia is that we tend to speak very fast compared to everyone else in the region. I know that I do it, my cousins do it, my mother and her sisters do it and to an extent, my grandmother and her sisters. Other people with deep local roots also tend to do the same, much to the extent that we make words run together. For example, if we say the city name of Grants Pass, there is no detectable pause between Grants and Pass, nor is there a pause between Rogue and River in Rogue River. If we say Mount Mcloughlin, even that comes out like one word and it's practically undecipherable to outsiders. That may be a German influence, as in Southern Oregon, about 90% of the earliest families in the area were of Germanic backgrounds. Even in my family, though we are Slavs, my great grandfather's first language was German since Bohemia was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian empire. The rest of Casacdia likely had a much wider base of immigrants.

As for "Warshington", with an "r", the only people I've heard do that in any area of Cascadia tended to be of advanced age and were typically the first generation in a family to come here. Most seem to have come in from the Mid West.

As for Ingle's study, I agree with Gr@ce that 14 people really isn't adequate to prove much. On the other hand, you must start somewhere and hopefully this can at least start the ball rolling. I do know that language is only one very small part of the puzzle to prove a separate Cascadian identity.

To me, another common link between all Cascadians is our sense of independence. In Oregon we never call ourselves "Americans". We are "Oregonians" first and foremost where as people in Washington are "North Westerners" first. The only other people held captive by Amerikan borders who think that way as a common collective are people in Texas and California. And it goes further, there is a common mentality in Cascadia to live life as free and independent as possible. That commonality transcends social class, religion or politics. If you put a hippie and a redneck in a sealed room, sooner or later, both will realize that they have much in common. Neither trusts the U.S. government, both desire to live independently without depending on government aid or buying into corporations and both just want to do their thing and be left alone.

What other things are common bonds between Cascadians from all walks of life that fuses into an identity?

I grew up in Ontario, Oregon, which is right next to the Idaho border, and then later moved to Boise, and all the things that are being said about Cascadian accents seem to apply to me as well. Would my area be considered part of Cascadia? One thing I've noticed with me is that I tend to add an "a" sound to words when I don't think it's there according to the spelling - for example, cemetary is "cem-a-terr-ee", military is "mill-a-terr-ee". Also, I've noticed I leave syllabols out of some words, like for grocery store I say "gross-ree" store. I don't know if these are nationwide things or things that are unique to this area! And all of the other commentary about how things are pronounced in the northwest applies to me as well, which means that, linguisticly, eastern and western Oregon must be similar. (SIM-A-LER).

I spent part of my childhood in your neck of the woods and lived in New Plymouth and Caldwell, while my step-father's parents lived in Ontario. I spent a lot of time there, as did my parents when they were children, but it has been years since I've been back.

Often, Eastern Oregon and Idaho are not included in some of the Cascadia models. For one, there's the fact that most view Cascadia as the region around the Cascades themselves. Two, I think a lot of people who live in the shadows of the Cascades tend to view people in Eastern Oregon and Idaho as ultra-conservative and instantly assume that they either wouldn't be able to relate to one another or that people there wouldn't support Cascadia as an individual entity (ie. that they would see themselves as "Americans"). The fact that Idaho was recently tagged as a "red state" doesn't help matters much.

Personally, I tend to think that Cascadia includes not only Eastern Oregon, but also Western Idaho. In my experience, most people over there talk the same way we do (excepting the few in very rural areas who have a very serious drawl, which I personally think is a sort of put-on and came about more out of stereotypes than anything cultural or historical).

But for me, I pronounce cemetery and military EXACTLY like you do, and while I do eliminate the "e" in grocery, for me it comes out alot more like "grosh-ree" and sounds a little German, which may be unique due to SW Oregon's Germanic influences.

I think the biggest determining factor though is how do people there feel about being included in Cascadia?

I usually roll my eyes when I see a projection of Cascadia without Idaho, Northern California and even the rare absent British Columbia. I agree with Nagasaki that ultimately that is the people of Idaho to determine what their future is. But I will say this a "Cascadia" without our relatives and the lands of "Eastern Cascadia" would not be a full Cascadia. The label of "red" and "blue" is a "divide and conquer" ploy and a smoke screen by the corporate media and the fascist elite to ignore addressing real issues of sustainablity, human rights, restorative justice, ecologically minded economies and all those things that a post industrial society should reflect on. A reflection upon the endless carnage to indiginous people, minorities, the poor, the victims of sexism and racism and ecocide.

Scotty, my family has been in western Washington and the Portland area for over a hundred years and well all those words you mentioned like "cemetary" and "military" are the way we pronounce them too. As a child this whole issue of pronounciation often came up in my family. We were one of those families that when we would be in the car would count the Californian license plates saying "there is another one and other one". It was actually a family conversation several times on the Oregon pronounciation (Washington State was always seen as the Northern Sister State) so the pronounciation of "creek" was a huge issue and in many ways my first realization that the Pacific NorthWest was different.

There is something else which I noticed in 3 rd and 4th grade for me (several decades ago) and that was the correcting of English in class by teachers over a specific word that I can not remember right now. Something like "brought" and how all the local children in class used and pronounced it. Whatever the word was it was literally forced out of the grammer by Californian teachers. It was at that time when i first played with the idea of a phonetic script.

before someone jumps on me about the "state divides" yes I realize that that is part of the game of divide and conquer we are all the victims of. I apologies to any Cascadians born there who was offended. Cascadia must transcend the old concept of borders and boundaries of outdated nation-states. Yes Cascadia has a cultural and historical landscape, but its definition should not be based on political borders. Cascadia must transcend the nation-state paradigm to embrace bioregionalism.

My former companion would giggle and mock me on the way I would say "mountainbike" in a quick sentence. She would claim I said it as "mountinbike" or something like that. She had one of the European accents and I would retaliate by giggling over her trying to say the word "swivel chair" which she would say in a cute way as "swible chair".

One of the most interestig things i've noticed about the accent in my home region (the Plateu region around Wilkeson and Buckley) is how similar the accent and vocab is to Appalachia. Which figures, seeing as tons of coal miners were moved out to that area in the late 1800s. I even catch myself saying "yonder" and "holler" (for a small valley) at times, not to mention that it took a long time for me to train myself to stop saying "y'all" over here in Iceland, largely because it made me sound like a friggin Texan. And no body in Europe likes Texans...

I am a Portland native, lived there all my life. Most of my family is from the Rogue Valley though.
I also say Military and Cemetary the same way. I think I might pronounce it with the "i" instead of "a" though if I were speaking formally. I couldn't tell you for sure though.
One commenter made me think of how I might pronounce "Mountain bike." Speaking formally I may say it correctly, otherwise if I'm saying it casually I would probably say "Moun-iN bike"

Somewhere, deep in the interior of Cascadia, in one of the coffeehouses that are indigenous to the region, yet have sprouted, somewhat parasitically in the rest of the world, a lone writer persists.

Despite the overwhelming persistence of historical evidence showing that most "Cascadians" are relatively recent immigrants (i.e. two hundred years ago their great-great-great grandparents were cozily sitting in Newark or Rome or Cedar Rapids or San Cristobal), he decides: "I will create a nation."

With Callenbach as his new Herzel, he lists the elements necessary: land, a somewhat separate and sustainable economy, a sense of self and....and...yes, we need a language, even just a dialect will do. That will unite us.

Fueled by enormous amounts of caffeine and nothing else to do with all this energy - work, family, meaningful political activity and a love life don't figure in this equation - he strides forth into the brave world of the Web.

As he leaves his coffeeshop, hey, even barristas have to go home eventually, he walks over the unseen and little thought of graves of the Chinook. His purpose in life is certain. Now if he can just find the phone number of those Aryan Nation folks in Idaho.

You do realize that the white fascists in Idaho are mostly recent "transplants" from all over the US. They thought they could make the Pacific NorthWest into their sick dream. They were driven out of Portland and hopefully one day will be driven out of all Cascadia. All of the racist and sexist history in this region reflects the racist and sexism history of the European expands to conquer the world and look what that has created oppression, genocide, ecocide, alienation, greed, empire and suffering after suffering. The White inbreds of the Aryan Nation can go to hell! Just remember they moved here from the other places of hate and suffering.

Cascadianism in not "nationalism"! It is bioregionalism that embraces biodiversity and diversity in culture and thought as long as that thought is one of tolerance of the rest. Yes there is a unique dialect that can be called Cascadian English, but may it NEVER express anything that Aryan-inbred Nation values!

Actually, the Aryan Nations *were* driven out of Idaho, at least organization-wise. They had a lawsuit filed against them for...I believe they assaulted or harassed a indigenous woman, and the woman and her son won $6 million in damages, which the nazis couldn't pay and thus they forfeited their little compound up there. And then, I think a year or so ago the crazy old man that was running the organization, Ray Butler, died, and the remaining nazis in the area set up camp in Kansas. Topeka, I believe.

But I will note that racism is still a major problem in Idaho, probably moreso than in Oregon and Washington. Since I moved here (from E. Oregon) I've noticed a huge amount of "casual" racism, where people tell racist jokes or make assumptions without even realizing that what they're doing is wrong. Racial profiling is a problem.

All in all, I think western Idaho shares a lot with Oregon and Washington, moreso then the rest of the mountain west. Mormonism isn't quite as prominent as in other areas, altough it's becoming more of a force in the suburbs of Boise. People aren't as likely to have a set political affilation here, and independent thinking is still fairly common, altough it's declined over the past few years. Boise passed a resolution against the Patriot Act, and a conservative Idaho representative, Butch Otter, who is AWFUL on everything else, is one of the main opponents of the Patriot Act. And in Boise, there's a surprisingly large number of independent coffeehouses and other businesses, and there's been a Co-Op here (creatively called the Boise Co-Op), since 1974.

Now, as far as getting people here to support being in Cascadia...that would probably be harder. Our streets are littered with yellow car magnets.

replace yellow car magnets with Proud to be Cascadian: Support Local Economy

"Proud to be Cascadian: Support Local Economy" bumpersticker should help. I would suggest making these with friends and telling people its ok to have the yellow "support our troops" sticker next to the "Proud to be Cascadian: Support Local Economy".... As time continues I would bet eventually you could see more of the Cascadian stickers especially as farmers and local merchants push against Wall-mart and other imperialist companies. Why would someone be against supporting local economy.. and as for being "Cascadian" well explain to them are "Southerners" not Americans too and they have pride in their region. After all we are all "Americans".. North Americans that is... (hehe)

making these stickers

Well these stickers I made are free. Which means you or whomever will have to make them (sell them as for all I care). Please tell me how they turn out. I will post several ways to make them with URL to the instructions:

after printing a potential sticker out on a color printer (maybe at a local copy center if one does not have a color printer) then as one site says:

2. Print it on Avery 5165 label stock
, or any other kind of Full-Sheet Label Paper stock. (NOTE that you should use a LaserJet printer instead of a bubblejet or other printer - this will ensure that the ink won't run in the rain. If you don't have access to a LaserJet printer, your local Kinkos has Laser copiers - it is cheap and easy.)

3. Cut them into three pieces.

(The Avery 5165 - or otherwise, full-sheet label stock - is available at any office supply store (even online) such as OfficeDEPOT, and will cost you less than $30 for 100 sheets - which will make 300 stickers! Or you can buy 25 sheets for less than $10. That's only 10 to 12 cents per sticker!)

NOTES:

1. TAG ONLY BUMPERS, DO NOT TAG A PAINTED SURFACE! Plastic type bumpers should not be tagged as people have claimed that the finish can be marred by the bumper sticker. Please put the sticker on the bottom of the rear window of such SUV's. Make sure you put it on the bottom of the window so as to not obstruct the rear view vision of the driver.
2. Dirty bumpers don't work... wipe of the excess grime before you tag an SUV - it is handy to bring a rag with you.
3. When you place the stickers on the bumper, rub it a few times to make sure it is really stuck on there good.
4. NOTE: If you use the Avery stock, when you remove the backing, some of the stickers may have a little corner that you have to remember to remove.

If this is so lame why do you return and read it? The front page post of it is down the site and the original publishing on the side bar is now in the archives. So it must attract you for some reason. If it was so lame then you would not even bother responding.

many people I have talked to all over the country (I do telesales, and they call me...) say I have no accent. Which in my mind is the Cascadian accent. But since I've been living in AZ, there's been a bit of a twang added to it, but not hick twang.
Accents are great, they give region a quickly identifiable identity and uniqueness. How that falls is up to the receiver.

For the record, the Aryan Nation has never been that prominent in Northern Idaho and as Yeti has pointed out, most traces of the Aryan Nation in Idaho have actually come from outside of the region. Their leader, the late Richard Butler was raised in and spent most of his life in California, not Idaho. In fact, the presence of the Aryan Nation in Idaho was actually barely known outside the state until 1992, when 400 federal agents converged on an isolated cabin on Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho belonging to Randy Weaver and his family, which led to the death of several members of Weaver's family. As Weaver had some racist views, he was easily vilified in the Amerikan media and had his name easily attached to the Aryan Nation in the course of the US government covering its ass, much the same way that they did at Waco a few years later. Idaho became forever associated with racism after that fact, even though the group has not been based in Idaho for the last four years. Despite Idaho's connection to white supremacy, a fairly large portion of the population is actually of Mexican descent. For example, when I went to elementary school in Idaho, I remember that about 80% of my classmates were of Mexican ancestry.

So, Idaho is hardly over-flowing with white supremacists. They are no greater in number in Idaho than in any other area. As Scotty pointed out, there is a lot of casual racism in Idaho, but you can find that anywhere. It doesn't matter where you live, what color or what nationality you are, you will always find racism until we can stomp it out.

Regarding Callenbach, the biggest problem with your dig against him and Cascadia as an entity, is that Callenbach did not originate the term Cascadia nor did he pioneer the concept. A sociologist at Seattle University by the name of David McClosky actually coined the name "Cascadia". As well, Callenbach does not (and as far as I know, never has) lived in Cascadia. He lives in the Bay Area, which is rarely included in any Cascadian model. Further, Callenbach did not originate the concept behind Cascadia, but he merely believed this region was the ideal place to set a novel about an Ecotopian society. Callenbach's two Ecoptopia novels have certainly furthered the idea of Cascadia and to a large extent have inspired many versions of the dream, but he did not invent the idea of an Independent Pacific NW.

The fact of the matter is, the goal of creating a separate country in the Pacific NorthWest began long before Oregon or Washington became U.S. states. Based on written history, Thomas Jefferson may have been the first person of any particular note to envision it. When Jefferson (as President) sent Lewis and Clark to explore the region, he had no design on expanding the borders of the United States into the western portion of North America. The reality is that Jefferson just wanted to explore the place for himself, but as he could not do that personally, he sent someone to do it for him. At the time, there were already settlers of European descent in the region, mostly of English, French and Russian nationality. For the most part (excepting some Russian atrocities in the Aleutians a few years earlier), these early settlers got on quite well with the natives and lived together peacefully. They learned bits and pieces of one another's languages (thereby creating Chinook Jargon) and regularly inter-married with one another. (ie. Most of these early settlers took natives for wives, hence their children were of both Native American and European heritage). The situation intrigued Jefferson since it was a polar opposite of what was going on in the United States and he had an idea that the region should not come under the control of any established country, but should instead become its own nation. He suggested that the new country be called the Republic of the Pacific, which would be a neighbor of the United States and of Mexican California. That was over 200 years ago.

Unfortunately, Jefferson's dream to allow the NW to progress on its own terms was not shared by other leaders. Eventually, with France and Russia ousted, the region (now dubbed the Oregon Territory) was shared jointly by the United States and England in 1818 after the Treaty of London. Most people do not realize this, but the signs are still here in the guise of the remains of several English forts. Another sign of the English influence lies with John McLoughlin, who is today considered the "Father of Oregon". McLoughlin wasn't an American, but in reality was a Canadian who worked for the English and he was under orders to discourage American interests in the region, which he completely disregarded as he was concerned for the plight of all people who came to settle in the region. He was rewarded for his sympathy with constant problems from American immigrants and later from the U.S. government who considered him a British agent confiscated his property and home.

Meanwhile, even though two nations had assumed "custody" over the NW, the dream for a new country did not die. Three men in the 1830's led the drive to make Oregon (which then included all areas which we think of as Cascadia) a new country, which included Lansford Hastings, William Bennett and James Marshall. But as Americans continued to pour in, trouble erupted which made not only Native Americans second class citizens, but also British, French and Canadians prone to similar treatment. Having been overpowered by American influence, the three men fled to California. Interestingly enough, the three did play major roles in California's history. Bennett was involved in the bear Flag Revolution and Marshall is credited with having discovered gold while he supervised the construction of Sutter's Mill. Meanwhile, Hastings became the most notorious after compiling the shoddy guidebook that doomed the Donner Party.

Still, even after Oregon became a U.S. state, elements among its population (and also in Northern California) sought to break free of American rule to form their own country from the very beginning of Oregon's statehood. While the Southern States broke free to form the Confederacy, they saw it as a perfect opportunity to do the same and gave new life to Jefferson's original idea, by trying to establish a country under Jefferson's name: the Republic of the Pacific which soon began to spread quickly in the physical region. Being at war with the confederacy and not being in a position to put the movement in the NorthWest down by use of force, the American government launched a propaganda attack in 1861 to destroy the movement by trying to associate the Pacific movement with a group called the Knights of The Golden Circle which was a pro-Confederate, pro-slavery organization. Soon, the American government was able to whip the region back into line.

At the same time, other movements inside of Cascadia, such as the Klamath movement, Trinity and Jackson movements all sought to wrench certain areas of Cascasdia free from U.S. control. These too failed, largely by being put down through various uses of force.

But the dream refused to die and was followed by yet another attempt to free Oregon from Amerikan rule in the 1890's.

In the 1930's, the State of Jefferson movement came into being and is to date, the best known of such movements in the region. On the surface, that movement appeared to be a drive to tear SW Oregon and Northern California away from California and Oregon. As this is historically a depressed area), many locals placed the blame on the governments of Salem and Sacramento. For that reason, a flag bearing two X's and a gold pan was adopted. The two X's represented the so-called "double crosses" from Sacramento and Salem. Though that is the State of Jefferson movement on the surface, many of those who organized it actually saw that the problems in "Jefferson" actually stemmed from the federal government and those people saw Jefferson statehood as a stepping stone to eventually breaking free from U.S. rule altogether. During 1940 and 1941, organizers attracted massive media attention by arming themselves and blockading Highway 99 to the south of Yreka where they collected tolls from motorists and passed out proclamations of independence. When a California Highway Patrolman turned up on the scene, he was told to "get down the road back to California". And they almost succeeded in their goal, with local representatives scheduled to meet with Congress on December 8th, 1941. As a result of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, the issue was tabled and after Japanese firebombs exploded in Oregon, killing several people, the entire movement faded away to support the war. (On that note, there is today, a new State of Jefferson, but the emphasis seems to be completely on statehood and is of a much more conservative brand than that previous)

But, once again, in 1956, groups from Cave Junction and Dunsmuir wreaked major havoc on the state and national level by threatening to tear SW Oregon and Northern California from their respective state rulers to form the "State of Shasta". Several of the organizers involved took it one step further and threatened the federal government with armed resistance unless certain demands were met. Unfortunately, the organizers quickly caved in when both states offered to meet some of their demands.

And today, we have many small groups supporting the movement for Cascadia.

So you see, we have a very long tradition of opposing the United States in this region and Callenbach is relatively small cookies in the big picture. His novels simply serve as a small inspiration for what could be.

Excellent excellent.. most people in our own region do not know our history.

Added notes:

John McLoughlin himself was a typical European settler in the area in the since that his own wife was Native American.

On 2 May 1843 the Provisional Government of Oregon was formed at Champoeg. This government was formed because of a combination of Wolf Meetings and a legal dispute over a family inheretance case. The Hudson bay company sent 52 representives to stop the US attempt to change the political landscape. The US-Americans had 50 voters. Two of the Hudson Bay voters were actually French Fur traders from San Fransisco who had some grievences with their British employers and were convinced by the US-Americans to vote against the English. But this vote did not make a Oregon a member of "United States" nor even a exclusive territory, but a Provisional Government. It was not until July 5th that an ultra pro-American group pushed an admendment to the Organic Act to undermined the Independence movement with "until such time as the USA extend their jurisdiction over us".

Osborne Russell who was a major candidate running for for the office to be the first Provisional Governor of Oregon strongly opposed Oregon becoming part of the United States. Russell was a famous trader in the region (his book on this experiences is still in print and is crucial in understanding the relationship of those first Europeans with the Native People). Eventually George Abernethy from New York won out with support from the "American" party. The time was far more political than the white washed US-American version tells us. Russell with the Hudson Bay Company backing favoured the Jeffersonian geopolitical concept of a Pacific Republic.

The word "Cascadian" (referring to the Cascades) actually pre-dates McClosky's use of "Cascadia". The term "Cascadian" is also a archtectual style reflecting (like the people) a wonder and awe of the Nature of this region. The term "Cascadian" can be found back the era of the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) for the art style in the Pacific NorthWest. For Portlanders the best example of Cascadian style is TImberline Lodge. Again as in previous posts I think our labour, unionist and "left" history which has been so "whitewashed" out of our history book after the McCarthy Era is crucial in our recovery of our history and sense of uniqueness. The CCC left profound cultural and literally physical marks on the landscapes of Cascadia and as our elders pass away much of that history is not being told.

Ofcourse I am one who strongly believe we must bring back a new Civilian Conservation Corp (I would like to call that Mamook Tillums or the Working People in Chinook) as a educational mentor-apprenticeship service that is combination a college, community service and employment program.

Well... not really. Victoria is technically below the 49th, but I grew up in Nanaimo.

So.. there's a difference between caught and cot? News to me. If you want something to listen for as far as Northwestern dialect, listen to a group of teenaged girls in Vancouver talk. Because the intonation goes up at the end of every sentence? Making every sentence sound like a question? And it's really annoying? Like, y'know? Once you know to look for it, you'll find a lot of people doing it, just not with the zeal and enthusiasm that (Fraser) valley-girls, like, put, like, into it?

- "Norwester" is a fishing or sailing term. It likely came from Newfoundland ("I'se da bye dat builds da boat, and I'se de bye dat sailst her.") and the East coast, since half the fisherman on the west coast can trace their lineage to the Maritimes. Originally, "norwester" referred only to a northwesterly wind, but the use expanded from there. I've also heard "Nordwest" used. The opposite of a norwester is, of course, a soueaster (sow-EE-ster, it sounds like a heifer celebrating the end of Lent).

- a "crick" is not a body of water, it's a cramp or pain in your neck or back. I should know, I've got one right now. ;) Using crick to mean creek is definitely "a 'merkin" thing that we furners can't fully appreciate.

- "Warshington". This seems to be an eastern WA thing. On a trip to Indy a couple years ago, I ran out of gas halfway through WA, and managed to pull over into a golf course/resort. While phoning the local gas station I asked the woman there where we were. I had her repeat "Suh cahny gahrrzorh" three times before I realized she was saying "Sun County Golf Resort". I never knew the East side of the state was so different. In Canada, the switch in culture happens pretty much at the Alberta border.

- foenettik pronunseeayshun. By all that is holy, PLEASE NO! I like my knives, calves, laughs, draught beers, tongues, wraps, liquors, lights, honours, and neighbourhoods, thank you muchly. The combination of all the norse, gaellic, and germanic influences are what make English a great and evocative language. Instead of removing the unspoken letters, how about undoing the years of laziness and begin pronouncing things the way they're written again? Go ahead! Say "REE-uhl-ter" (realtor), "FEB-roo-air-ee" (February), "al-yoo-MIH-nee-um" (Aluminium IS the proper term), and "half" (like 'Alf', the un-funny alien puppet, with a softer 'L'). Use "an" instead of "a" in front of an 'h'. It'll sound weird at first, but I guarantee it'll grow on you and an happy time will be had by all.

- about, aboot, etc. The only reason Canadians sound like they're saying aboot is because we don't pronounce it with a dipthong, abah-yowt. Americans pronounce "a boot" like "about", not the other way around. ;-P

- @Brit. There certainly is such a thing as a "British accent". A British accent is one that comes from Britain. A brogue is a British accent, Welsh is a British accent, Cockney is a Britich accent. In truth, I probably couldn't specifically place most English accents, but how many Londoners know the difference between "Western" and "Southern", or between Bronx and Young St. accents? They may be different, but they're all still North American.

- More annoying to me than "O-ree-gone" is "or-rih-GOH-no" for Oregano. It's "o-RAY-guh-no" and it rhymes with potatano. ;)

- Lastly, apparently the character Kryten from Red Dwarf is supposed to have a "Vancouver" accent. He adopted it as the "least offensive" accent he could think of when the heavy Swedish accent he was originally using was found to be amusing at first, but extremely tiresome after a while. It actually would be a passable West Coast accent if he just relaxed a bit instead of making them so punchy.

I have lived here in WA state for the past 20 years and there are two things about the language here that STILL drive me bezerk. The first is the official lazy pronounciation of both fifteen and fifty, which in Northwestern are said identically, with no apparent distinction between the two. Countless times when it has really mattered, I have had to confront the utterer of such with "do you mean 1-5 fif-TEEN or 5-O fif-TY?". The other sanctioned pronounciation gaffe is how people relentlessly put an "upwards e" sound on all days of the week and other select words that end in vowels so that Sunday or Friday comes out as "Suhn-dee" or "Fry-dee" as opposed to the proper Sunday or Friday that ends with a distinct "ay" sound. That and people pronounce aunt and ant with no distinction. Aunt is supposed to be pronounced as awnt. People also go overboard (no pun intended) pronouncing the "T" sound in water making their speech sound very stilted as if they aren't even a native English speaker out this way. They pronounce the word roof as ruhf (as in hoof), totally obscuring the correct "oo" sound while paradoxically pronouncing poor as poo-r (as if they said poo-er). Lazy enunciation does not a dialect make!!!

I'm a west coaster born on the east coast lol!...Always loved everything Pacific Coastal. I love this article on accent, because the last time I was in Northern California, I noticed the Cascadian accent thing. I especially notice in my friends from Oregon. I especially noticed the extra emphasis they put on the "s" sound...Very sexy when Cascadian women do it! I don't check the news here often, so if anyone wants to comment to me, mail at itsjustadam80@yahoo.com